Izuchukwu OkosiIga Swiatek thrashed Jessica Pegula in the early hours of Tuesday morning to win the season-ending WTA Finals and move back to the top of the women’s rankings.
The Pole began her contest against her rival late on Monday night and required victory against the American to stand a chance to overtake Aryna Sabalenka as world number one and that was she eventually achieved with a 6-1, 6-0 win in the closely fought game.
She is the youngest champion of the tournament since Petra Kvitova’s 2011 win at the age of 21.
“I want to thank my team who have been with me for the whole season,” said Swiatek.
“We’ve had many ups and downs but this is for sure an up, and we’ll have many more if we keep working like that.”
The WTA final took place a day late following bad weather at the event but was played out in sunshine at the venue in Cancun, Mexico.
Swiatek was quickly out of the blocks and broke in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead before racing away to claim the first set in 27 minutes.
Swiatek defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals of the WTA Finals, 6-3, 6-2, to not only reach the final of the season-ending event for the first time, but to get within one win of returning to No. 1.
It was the first set either player had dropped at the event and Pegula, the world number five, lost her serve for a third time in the first game of the second set.
Swiatek was overwhelming her rival and broke to love to go 3-0 up on the way to securing her sixth WTA title of the season.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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